Theological/philosophical/cultural/spiritual thoughts about God and the Real Jesus.

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Krauss (sort of) Recants

Warren Dunes State Park, SW Michigan

Physicist Lawrence Krauss has become more famous than ever for his non-scientific claim that: “Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen
joke, ‘those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.' And
the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as
far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other
philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever. ... they have
every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy
doesn’t.”

Krauss calls philosopher David Albert a "moronic philosopher." Pigliucci writes: "Still, I wonder if Krauss is justified in referring to Albert as a “moronic
philosopher,” considering that the latter is not only a highly respected
philosopher of physics at Columbia University, but also holds a PhD in
theoretical physics. I didn’t think Rockefeller University (where Albert got his
degree) gave out PhD’s to morons, but I could be wrong."

"The reason physicists such as Weinberg, Hawking and Krauss keep bashing
philosophy is because they suffer from an intellectual version of the Oedipus
Complex (you know, philosophy was the mother of science and all that... you can
work out the details of the inherent sexual frustrations from there)."

"The business of philosophy (of science, in particular) is not to solve
scientific problems — we’ve got science for that (Julia and I explain what
philosophers of science do here). To see how absurd Krauss’ complaint is
just think of what it would sound like if he had said that historians of science
haven’t solved a single puzzle in theoretical physics. That’s because historians
do history, not science. When was the last time a theoretical physicist
solved a problem in history, pray?"

"And then of course there is the old time favorite theme of philosophy not making
progress. I have debunked
that one too, but the crucial point is that progress in philosophy is not
and should not be measured by the standards of science, just like the word
“progress” has to be interpreted in any field according to that field’s issues
and methods, not according to science’s issues and methods. (And incidentally,
how’s progress on that string theory thingy going, Lawrence? It has been 25
years and counting, and still no empirical evidence...)"

"Krauss also has a naively optimistic view of the business of science, as it
turns out. For instance, he claims that “the difference [between scientists and
philosophers] is that scientists are really happy when they get it wrong,
because it means that there’s more to learn.” Seriously? I’ve practiced science
for more than two decades, and I’ve never seen anyone happy to be shown wrong,
or who didn’t react as defensively (or even offensively) as possible to any
claim that he might be wrong. Indeed, as physicist Max Plank famously put it,
“Science progresses funeral by funeral,” because often the old generation has to
retire and die before new ideas really take hold. Lawrence, scientists are just
human beings, and like all human beings they are interested in mundane things
like sex, fame and money (and yes, the pursuit of knowledge). Science is a
wonderful and wonderfully successful activity (despite the more
than occasional blunder), but there is no reason to try to make its
practitioners look like some sort of intellectual saints that they certainly are
not (witness also the alarming
increase in science fraud, for instance)." (I know I'm quoting a lot, but these are so funny, and true. Therefore they are truly funny (another informal logical fallacy).

"Postscript: As people have pointed out, Krauss has issued an apology
of sorts, apparently forced by Dan Dennett. He still seems not to have
learned much though. He confuses theology with philosophy (in part), keeps
hammering at a single reviewer who apparently really annoyed him (in the New
York Times), and more importantly just doesn't get the idea that philosophy of
science is NOT in the business of answering scientific questions (we've got,
ahem, science for that!). It aims, instead, at understanding how science works.
Really, is that so difficult to understand, Prof. Krauss?"